• ‘Britain offers us a symbol that ties the races together’

• Tour de France Femmes will conclude on Puy de Dôme

The most ambitious Grand Départ in the long history of the Tour de France was unveiled in Paris on Thursday as the race organisers fleshed out the details of next summer’s men’s and women’s race starts in Edinburgh and Yorkshire.

Over six days of racing, Scotland, England’s Lake District and Peak District, Lancashire and Yorkshire, Wales and central London will be taken over by the snaking race caravan on a route that is expected to lure millions to the roadside.

Redundancies beckon as British Cycling restructures while former cyclists and employees raise concerns over return of ‘toxic culture’

British Cycling’s most successful world track championships campaign in over a decade, in which they topped the medal table in the first qualifying event for the 2028 Olympic Games, was achieved against a backdrop of allegations of misconduct and looming redundancies.

Despite a traumatic buildup to the championships in Shanghai, with star sprinter Matt Richardson withdrawn from competition on the eve of the event due to allegations of “discriminatory remarks”, the British squad recovered to win six gold medals, three silver and three bronze.

• Pinarello-Q36.5’s Camprubí and Gloag floored in crash

• ‘Things like this shouldn’t happen,’ says British rider

Tom Pidcock has admitted he almost quit the Tre Valli Varesine in a rage after a police motorcyclist drove into the peloton and struck two of his Pinarello Q36.5 teammates.

Speaking after the race in northern Italy, in which he finished second, Pidcock said: “A police motorbike was going the wrong way down the course and crashed into two of our guys.

• Arizona rider first US champion since Lance Armstrong

• Pre-race favourite Evenpoel fails to add second gold

Brandon McNulty, a UAE Emirates teammate of Tadej Pogacar, succeeded the Slovene as world champion with an unexpected solo win in the men’s UCI road race in Montreal.

In the biggest triumph of his career, the 28-year-old American took his country’s first win in the UCI’s blue riband event since Lance Armstrong’s lone victory in Oslo in 1993.

• Demi Vollering powers to victory in brutal Montreal race

• Tour de France Femmes champion wins sprint finish

Demi Vollering won the longest edition of the women’s world road race championship in a brutal and compelling sprint finale in Montreal.

The 29-year-old’s success capped a remarkable season in which she has also won a second Tour de France title, the Giro women, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour of Flanders.

Britons Tom Pidcock and Oscar Onley also among the contenders for world road race title in Slovenian’s absence

In a world road championships marked by the absence of Tadej Pogacar, Tom Pidcock and Oscar Onley will lead British hopes in the men’s elite road race on Sunday. But for either to claim the rainbow jersey, they must beat a determined Remco Evenepoel, a man on a mission in Montreal.

Pogacar is recovering after a heavy crash in the Vuelta a España and Pidcock and Onley are among a large group of contenders, headed by Paul Seixas of France, Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro of Mexico, all seeking to capitalise on the Slovenian’s absence. 

Visma-Lease A Bike rider reflects on his stunning Grand Tour debut that has proved ‘the work had all been worth it’

When Matthew Brennan sat down with his team before the race to study this year’s Vuelta a España route, the young Briton had limited expectations for his Grand Tour debut. Fast forward a few weeks and the 21-year-old from Darlington is the youngest rider ever to win five stages in a single Grand Tour.

He is also the youngest to win back-to-back stages. His fifth win was the seventh for his Visma‑Lease A Bike team in this Vuelta, the highest number they have ever achieved at this level, surpassing the tallies of six set at the 2022 Tour de France and this year’s Giro d’Italia.

• ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if some got heatstroke’

• Spain’s Enric Mas retains leader’s red jersey

Britain’s Matthew Brennan expressed his disbelief at the extreme heat riders had to endure on Sunday during stage 15 of the Vuelta a España. His Visma Lease a Bike teammate Wout van Aert took a sprint win in Córdoba after the stage was shortened because of high temperatures.

“It’s 41 degrees average,” Brennan said. “When I was on the climb at the start it was 44, and at that point you start thinking: ‘What are we doing?’ A normal office person has to have the temperature set at 20 degrees or whatever, and I’m sure that the UCI [cycling’s governing body] office will have their 20 as well.”

• Belgian beats Briton Lewis Askey into second

• Bradley Wiggins’ son Ben finishes in 10th

Tim Wellens, teammate to Tadej Pogacar at the UAE Emirates XRG team, took overall victory in the men’s Tour of Britain, after the Belgian rider had decisively snatched the overall race lead on the fourth stage on Saturday, through the hills of North Yorkshire.

Wellens had started the final stage in Earlston 21 seconds ahead of Lewis Askey but extended that advantage to 42sec by the finish. The British rider finished second overall after riding impressively through the earlier stages, while Ben Wiggins, son of Sir Bradley Wiggins, placed 10th overall.

• Mauritian claims landmark victory at Leamington Spa

• Wiebes finishes second after 137th career stage win

Kim Le Court sealed overall victory in the Tour of Britain Women in Royal Leamington Spa, as Lorena Wiebes took her fourth sprint win in this year’s race and the 11th stage victory of her career.

Wiebes has surpassed Mark Cavendish’s career mark of 10 stage wins and now has the most victories of any rider competing in either the men’s or women’s Tour of Britain. Le Court, who won a stage and finished ninth overall in the Tour de France Femmes earlier this month, based her success on a solo victory in Friday’s uphill finish to the Great Orme, overlooking Llandudno. It was the most significant race victory of the Mauritian rider’s career.

Slovenian is aiming to become the ninth rider to win all three Grand Tours, and it doesn’t look as if anyone can stop him

Who’s coming second? That’s the question being most frequently asked as the peloton convenes for the final Grand Tour of 2026, the Vuelta a España, which rolls away from the start line in Monaco on Saturday.

The unrelenting Tadej Pogacar, making his first appearance in the Spanish race since 2019, is the overwhelming favourite to take the top spot on the podium in Granada on 13 September, with his cowed rivals already seemingly accepting of his supremacy.

Women’s peloton returns after death of Finlay Tarling, who died during the Volta a Portugal last week

The 2026 Tour of Britain Women starts in Cumbria on Wednesday under a cloud after the death of the Welsh rider Finlay Tarling in the Volta a Portugal last Friday.

Tarling was in a collision with a non-race vehicle during the race’s eighth stage and, while police investigations into the exact circumstances surrounding the incident continue, the professional cycling community remains in shock.

• Riders’ union expresses fury about Volta a Portugal

• Tarling died after collision with non-race vehicle

The professional cycling community has reacted with fury to the death of the teenage Welsh rider, Finlay Tarling, in the Volta a Portugal, with a leading former professional describing the race’s safety measures as “catastrophic”.

Tarling, the younger brother of the Netcompany Ineos professional Josh Tarling, was in collision with a non-race vehicle driving towards the peloton while he competed in the Portuguese race’s eighth stage. The 19-year-old’s death on Friday has led to a surge of anger, with the riders’ union, the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA), describing itself as “furious”.

• Teenager involved in an accident in Portugal

• Rider’s NSN Development Team ‘heartbroken’

Finlay Tarling, the younger brother of Netcompany Ineos rider, Josh Tarling, has been killed while racing in stage eight of the Volta a Portugal.

Although the details are yet to be confirmed, reports in the Portugese and French media suggest that the 19-year-old Welsh rider was hit by a non-race vehicle travelling on the course in the opposite direction to the peloton.

Overall winner was uncertain until final climb – a world away from Slovenian’s dominance of men’s event

Demi Vollering’s second overall win in the Tour de France Femmes in Nice on Sunday was achieved after a heated dispute with Kasia Niewiadoma, but by the time the sun was setting on the Promenade des Anglais, the sisterhood that has always characterised this race had kicked back in.

On a final stage of high drama, the Dutchwoman erased the lingering controversy with an attacking win of the highest quality, further boosting the prestige of the long-dormant native cycling scene in a gutsy performance from her French‑sponsored FDJ United-Suez team.

• Dutch cyclist finishes 1:18 clear of Kasia Niewiadoma

• ‘I know what’s right and what’s not,’ runner-up says

In the end, there was no debate. Demi Vollering went clear on the Col d’Èze, overlooking Nice, to win her second Tour de France Femmes from rival Kasia Niewiadoma, champion in 2024, by one minute and 18 seconds.

The decisive attacks came on the narrow snaking climb of the Chemin du Vinaigrier, past swimming pools and art deco villas, where breakaway rider Isabella Holmgren was finally overhauled and ­Vollering and Niewiadoma again went head-to-head.

• Victory on penultimate stage secures eight-second lead

• Previous leader claims she was blocked by rival’s team

Demi Vollering took the overall lead from Kasia Niewiadoma in the Tour de France Femmes with a vicious attack in the hills behind Nice to lead the race by eight seconds from the 2024 winner, with just one stage remaining.

“It’s very special to be back in yellow,” Vollering, leader of French team FDJ United-Suez said. “Tomorrow I start in yellow and I will do everything in my power to keep it. So much can happen – it’s still a big fight.”

• Pole leaves fellow contenders behind on iconic climb

• Demi Vollering trails by 15sec, Marlen Reusser by 39sec

Kasia Niewiadoma took a spectacular solo victory on the legendary Mont Ventoux, securing a slim overall lead in the Tour de France Femmes after leaving behind her fellow race favourites Marlen Reusser and Demi Vollering.

“It’s hard to describe my feelings because I’m still blown away by what just happened,” Niewiadoma, who won the yellow jersey in 2024, said of the first Tour stage victory of her career.

• Mauritian rider outsprints Kerbaol and Pieterse

• ‘Winning a stage in a Tour de France is very special’

Marlen Reusser retained the overall lead in the Tour de France Femmes from rival Demi Vollering after another broiling stage through central France saw Kim Le Court take the second Tour stage win of her career in Tournon-sur-Rhone.

The Mauritian rider Le Court recovered from a mechanical problem earlier in the stage on the climb of the Col de Lalouvesc to join the day’s breakaway group and outsprint Cédrine Kerbaol of France, and Queen of the Mountains classification leader, Puck Pieterse.

• Three outstanding riders in race broke clear of peloton

• Padding row intensifies after footage of male inspection

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s defence of her Tour de France Femmes title unravelled among the Beaujolais vineyards as the French rider lost even more ground to rivals Demi Vollering, Marlen Reusser and Kasia Niewiadoma.

The three outstanding riders in this year’s race broke clear of the peloton over the final steep gradients of Mont Brouilly, with 2023 Tour winner Vollering outsprinting overall race leader Reusser to take the fourth Tour stage win of her career.